If I do not burn
If I do not burn
If you do not burn
If we do not burn
How will darkness come to light?
poem by Nazim Hikmet
Added by Dan Costinaş
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You Are My Drunkenness
You are my drunkenness...
I did not sober up, as if I can do that;
I don't want to anyway.
I have a headache, my knees are full of scars
I am in mud all around
I struggle to walk towards your hesitant light.
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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September 24th 1945
The most beautiful sea:
hasn't been crossed yet.
The most beautiful child:
hasn't grown up yet.
Our most beautiful days:
we haven't seen yet.
And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you
I haven't said yet...
poem by Nazim Hikmet
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Thinking Of You
Thinking of you is pretty, hopeful,
It is like listening to the most beautiful song
From the most beautiful voice on earth...
But hope is not enough for me any more,
I don't want to listen to songs any more,
I want to sing.
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Five Lines
To overcome lies in the heart, in the streets, in the books
from the lullabies of the mothers
to the news report that the speaker reads,
understanding, my love, what a great joy it is,
to understand what is gone and what is on the way.
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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You
You are my enslavement and my freedom
You are my flesh burning like a raw summer night
You are my country
You are the green silks in hazel eyes
You are big, beautiful and triumphant
And you are my sorrow that isn't felt
the more I feel it.
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Optimistic Man
as a child he never plucked the wings off flies
he didn't tie tin cans to cats' tails
or lock beetles in matchboxes
or stomp anthills
he grew up
and all those things were done to him
I was at his bedside when he died
he said read me a poem
about the sun and the sea
about nuclear reactors and satellites
about the greatness of humanity
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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I Love You
I love you
like dipping bread into salt and eating
Like waking up at night with high fever
and drinking water, with the tap in my mouth
Like unwrapping the heavy box from the postman
with no clue what it is
fluttering, happy, doubtful
I love you
like flying over the sea in a plane for the first time
Like something moves inside me
when it gets dark softly in Istanbul
I love you
Like thanking God that we live.
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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About My Poetry
I have no silver-saddled horse to ride,
no inheritance to live on,
neither riches no real-estate --
a pot of honey is all I own.
A pot of honey
red as fire!
My honey is my everything.
I guard
my riches and my real-estate
-- my honey pot, I mean --
from pests of every species,
Brother, just wait...
As long as I've got
honey in my pot,
bees will come to it
from Timbuktu...
Trans. by Mutlu Konuk and Randy Blasing (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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It's This Way
I stand in the advancing light,
my hands hungry, the world beautiful.
My eyes can't get enough of the trees--
they're so hopeful, so green.
A sunny road runs through the mulberries,
I'm at the window of the prison infirmary.
I can't smell the medicines--
carnations must be blooming nearby.
It's this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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